


Sunsets and Stars

by lilaclily00



Series: Danny/Valerie Roleswap!AU [3]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: AU, D/V Roleswap!AU, Danny/Valerie Roleswap!AU, DannyMay, DannyMay 2019, DannyMay19, Gen, roleswap!Au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 02:16:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18714472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilaclily00/pseuds/lilaclily00
Summary: Valerie Gray meets her clone.(DannyMay 2019 Day 5: Sunset)





	Sunsets and Stars

**Author's Note:**

> This is somewhat a recap of "Kindred Spirits" in the D/V roleswap!AU. Dani's appearance is based off of this post: https://pigte.tumblr.com/post/183176044821/danielle-being-the-daughter-mutual-clone-of-a
> 
> Crosspost to Tumblr: https://lilaclily00.tumblr.com/post/184658365737/sunsets-and-stars
> 
> On with the story!

Being Phoenix was exhausting. Valerie felt like she could barely function as she trudged home after yet another ghost-troubles-related detention.

“Ugh, I just wanna nap,” she muttered to herself as she came up the stairs and to her bedroom doorway. She dropped her backpack from her shoulders, flicked on the light--and was suddenly wide awake, instinctively crouching into a defensive stance. Someone was on her bed.

“Who are you?” she demanded, eyes narrowed and heart pounding. The figure pulled down the magazine away from her face and Valerie blinked at how... young it was. It was just some girl maybe a couple years younger than her, with big gray-blue eyes and freckles dancing across her bronze skin.

“I’m Danielle,” the girl stated with surprising confidence as she folded down the corner of the page to mark her place. “Do you have something I could eat?”

Valerie reasserted her stance; there wasn’t a real reason yet to let her guard down. “Not unless you tell me why you’re here and how you got into my room.”

Danielle placed the magazine beside her--it was a random copy of  _ Vogue  _ from Valerie’s collection in her closet--and folded her legs under herself. “I walked through the door.” She pulled a grin, which shrank when Valerie didn’t smile back. “I ran away from home, and... well, you’re the closest family I have. Distance-wise.” She sheepishly rubbed at her neck, beneath her black, wavy hair. “We’re, like, third cousins once-removed.”

Valerie inched closer. Third cousins once-removed? Strangely remote relationship  _ and  _ specific. “We don’t know each other. Why would you come to me instead of one of your friends?”

Danielle flinched, and Valerie sighed. Something about that reaction told her what she needed to know--no friends. She loosened her stance, standing up and watching the girl with crossed arms for a few seconds. Danielle watched back, fidgeting under the stare, but she held the gaze.

“Alright,” Valerie finally said, motioning to the door, “let’s go start making dinner.” Danielle’s eyes lit up as she ran back out the room, Valerie following. It would take receiving a few more answers before she could trust this strange girl, but so far, she didn’t seem so bad.

* * *

Valerie startled awake at a sound, which was immediately followed by whispered apologies. She fought her grogginess away to focus on Danielle’s face hovering by her blanket-bundled self. The girl was standing next to her, much closer than she anticipated. Valerie scooted back, then sat up. “Ugh, what time is it?”

“Time for you to--eh, that one’s overused.” The younger girl hunched her shoulders up. “Sorry again, didn’t mean to interrupt your nap. I was trying to get over you to look at the sunset.”

Valerie frowned, then turned her attention to the window hanging over her bed. Oranges, pinks, and purples painted the sky outside, tinting wisps of clouds and a weaning moon already peeking out. She slowly relaxed into a small smile, even as Danielle messily climbed onto the bed beside her. The girl’s face glowed in the gentle light, her expression filled with childish awe.

“Sometimes I forget how pretty these can be,” Valerie mused aloud.

Danielle began to bob her head, then shook it to disagree instead, beanie nearly falling off. “I just don’t get tired of them. I can’t. It’s like the sky is on fire! But in a good way!”

“Hey, I’ve thought the same thing!” The girls looked back to each other, considering each other, twin grins on their faces.

Danielle was the first to turn back to the window. “Would you get mad at me if I stayed up to look at the stars too?”

* * *

Vlad’s ugly blue face leered at her with triumph. “Good afternoon, dear girl.”

Valerie snarled at him, then her gaze diverted to the computer screens behind him, playing clips of her transforming. Her glare renewed. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Because you are intelligent, just like myself.” Vlad swished his cape behind him as he turned to type commands into the computer.

Valerie wished so, so badly she was not trapped so thoroughly so she could sock him for that comment alone. “I am  _ not  _ like you, you psychopath!”

“Oh, I do believe we’re alike, not just with our shared powers.” He stood straight in the air, chest puffed out, as he watched the computer do some analyses on the video clips. “You also keep using that word, but I don’t believe it means what you think it means.” He floated back over to her. “You say it as if it is synonymous with ‘crazed villain’. I am neither a psychopath  _ or  _ a crazed villain. All I ever wanted was happiness.”

“At the expense of everyone else’s,” she spat, but he paid her no heed, instead merely pressing a button on the wall. A chamber to the side began to open, hissing with released pressure.

“Yet you and the Fentons refuse to let that happen. Maddie and Daniel will not become a family with me, and you have denied my offer to become my apprentice time and time again. You have all forced my hand to get what I want in a different way.”

Her jaw dropped as she watched the chamber reveal a replica of... herself, her ghostly half, limp and connected to tubes.

Vlad continued, “The good clone is the product of many months’ work, and is close to completion--it is almost ready to accept your DNA.”

Valerie’s brain hurt with how fast it was moving. This was  _ far _ beyond espionage and sabotage and even outright obsession. He had been creating  _ clones  _ of her--presumably to have a half-ghost child and apprentice of his own. “So those ghosts--”

He apathetically watched one of those very ghosts from earlier that day drift to his side, long white hair and red boots dripping ectoplasm. “Yes, the bad clones, the failures.”

She thought back to Danielle--and her betrayal. Calling Vlad her father. A stone settled in her stomach. “Is Danielle one of them?”

Vlad narrowed his eyes at her for a second. “She’s actually my most successful yet. I had thought the problem was the instability of your DNA, and added another person’s DNA to help, which worked, but not quite enough.” Alarm bells rang in her head, but he didn’t give her a chance to think on that more. “Turns out what I  _ really  _ need is a mid-morph sample from you.”

“And you think I’ll just give that to you?!” Valerie screeched, struggling in her trap.

“I wish you would, but alas,” Vlad sighed, snapping his fingers, prompting one of the clones to action, “that is an unrealistic expectation.”

She heard nothing after that except for her own screams.

* * *

“I know you can’t beat me,” Danielle declared, squeezing her fists tight at her sides. Her white, curly ponytail floated and her eyes glowed green.

Valerie slowly worked at standing up, lightheaded and trembling. “You’re right, but I’m not going to fight you. It’ll hurt you more than me.”

“You heard him, I’m the most stable clone!” Danielle began forming an ecto-blast, then stopped as she realized her body wasn’t handling it anymore--ectoplasm bubbled off her feet. She bit her lip, then said, “If you don’t give him your morph DNA, then I’ll always be like this. He needs it to save me!”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s true.” Valerie had successfully stood all the way up, keeping her distance, tired eyes set on the smaller girl. “He said you’re the best one yet, but he  _ also _ said you’re not good enough. He’s using you, just like he’s using Danny and so many other people.”

She suddenly remembered why Danielle looked so different compared to the other clones. She had DNA from someone else, too, and it really wasn’t terribly hard to guess who on her name alone. Vlad’s ability to do messed-up things was truly unprecedented.

“You--you’re lying!” Danielle shot at her, horror setting into her eyes. Valerie had just barely managed to put up a feeble shield, yet she still got knocked back a foot. Determination settled back into the younger girl. “He cares about me too much.”

“He doesn’t care about anyone, not really. He doesn’t know what real love is!” Valerie’s chest ached, not just physically, and before she knew it, she was shouting. “Look at me--look at this situation! Look at what he’s done! I’m only  _ fourteen _ !” She looked into Danielle’s acid green eyes, nothing like her own, yet strangely reminiscent of the girl’s namesake. “Danny’s only fourteen, too, and--and he claims to love Danny as a son, then goes and creates  _ you  _ out of him? What do you call that?”

Danielle stepped back, doubt making her every move difficult. Valerie regretted her words a little; she didn’t want to watch the girl go through so much pain. Finally, in a small voice, Danielle said, “It feels like he just bosses me around, and... he’s cruel to the other clones.”

Valerie hesitantly walked towards her. Her clone gave no indication that she intended to fight anymore. “I don’t want him to start being cruel to you, too. I know it’d be hard to leave, but anything’s better than staying with Vlad.”

“Where would I even go, though?” she whined, holding her head in her hands.

“I think our bigger priority right now is just getting out of this mansion, but... well, we are family,” Valerie began, amazed by the words coming out of her mouth. She’d become incredibly attached to the girl, even thought it’d only been one day. “We’ll figure it out.”

Danielle gaped at her, hope shining through, and Valerie just had to hug her. The girls melted into their embrace. The moment was brief, though, as they remembered where they were, and both looked down to the floor, as if gazing straight into the basement.

“We need to destroy the equipment, don’t we?” Danielle stated.

Valerie added, “And beat up Vlad.” She breathed into her nonexistent lungs, then back out. She already felt a little better than just a few minutes ago. Ghostly healing really was something else. “But just enough to do the job; I don’t think either of us have the strength for more than that.”

“Deal.” Danielle grinned at Valerie, and Valerie grinned back before both went intangible and flew down through the floor--together.

 

* * *

 

Danielle disappeared right after the fight, and Valerie agonized over whether to go looking for her or head home. She ultimately picked the latter, flying out before Vlad got to recover. Danielle had still been in... okay condition, at the last sighting, and she knew where Valerie lived, if she planned to go back there as well.

Valerie sat on the roof of her house that same night, watching the sky fade from orange to black, when Danielle made her appearance, popping into visibility right next to her. “Dang it, the sunset’s almost over.”

The elder girl didn’t even flinch. Instead, she gnawed on her lip, picking her words. “Were... you thinking of staying here?”

Danielle curled herself up into a ball. “No, I think I shouldn’t. I don’t want to make you or your dad take care of me.”

Valerie’s eyes widened. “You’d rather be out there all on your own?”

“Well, like you said, it’s better than being with my father--uh, Vlad, still.” The girl shrugged a little to herself, hugging her knees closer to herself. “And I know I’m not all alone. I still have a friend.”

Valerie scooched over to wrap her arm around Danielle. She could see her point--if she were in the same situation, she’d be sick of people pretending to be parents, too, even if their intentions were good. She wasn’t sure her house would be the best setting for Danielle, anyway, if both of them were going to be hiding so many secrets from her dad. She still didn’t like the idea, but maybe she could trust that her clone would be okay out there, and find someone she was comfortable living with when she was ready for that.

“So I take it you came to say bye?” Valerie asked, eyes focused on the fading sunlight.

“Yeah, but I wanted to watch the sky a little longer first.”

She smiled. “Okay.”

The stars slowly appeared, and Danielle vanished once again.

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone wondering--yes, I do still plan to finish the last part of "Apologies". :)


End file.
